The Cost of Speed in Avian Influenza Surveillance: How Early Detection Saved a Farm and Protected a Region
When a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak hit a European poultry farm in 2025, rapid on-site testing enabled complete containment in just three days with zero spread to neighboring farms and zero human infections.
With Alveo Sense:
45 minutes - Time to presumptive positive
24 hours - Time to authorized culling
3 days - Total containment
0 HPAI cases - Within 10km radius
0 infections - Employees infected
21 days - Follow-up period with zero secondary outbreaks
Without Early Detection
+2-3 days - Waiting for lab results
+1-2 days - Hesitation analyzing symptoms
3-5+ days - Before action could begin
Risk: Continued viral shedding, potential spread to personnel, neighboring farms, and wildlife
In 2025, a European poultry farm detected clinical signs of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. With no prior outbreak experience, the veterinary team faced every farm's worst-case scenario: confirm the threat and act before it spread, or wait for lab results and risk catastrophe.
Traditional PCR testing requires sending samples to a lab and waiting 2-3 days for results. During that window, veterinarians face a paralyzing dilemma: send samples too early and risk false alarms, or wait for clearer symptoms and risk catastrophic spread.
The Alveo Sense Poultry Avian Influenza Test delivered a presumptive positive result in 45 minutes, allowing the farm team to immediately trigger emergency protocols while awaiting official confirmation.
Complete containment.
Zero infections.
Zero spread.
The rapid response enabled by on-site molecular testing allowed authorities to authorize preventive culling before lab confirmation arrived. Within 3 days, depopulation and burial were complete. 21 days later, no HPAI cases were recorded on any farm within a 10km perimeter.
"The creation of a decentralized testing ecosystem that respects and expands process control by disease management authorities, combined with molecular biology levels of accuracy, could lead a paradigm shift in the way notifiable disease challenges are controlled. With the Alveo platform, test results are time and geotagged, to track, trace and tag to support ongoing widespread monitoring programs. This has never been possible before and will be a powerful tool to fight the spread of this pathogen and help ensure food security for millions of people around the globe."
Dr. Richard Currie
President, x-OvO
“I wanted to congratulate you all on developing such a well-designed and user-friendly device. While I understand the significant attention H5 viruses receive, the ability to detect silent H9N2 outbreaks in chicken houses, particularly in Asia, in 45 minutes is truly remarkable. I look forward to seeing this device in use out there.”
Flavio Cargnin Faccin, DVM, PhD
Perez lab
Department of Population Health
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Georgia
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